Extracting Oxygen From The Moons Surface
Is there a way to extract oxygen from the moon’s surface?
A lot of space exploration ventures have been proposed and sadly, most of them have failed. It’s hard to say why this is, but one possible reason could be because of the amount of oxygen present. Since oxygen is an important element for astronauts to have in their systems, it would make sense to mine it from other planets.
There are two main options for mining the moon’s surface. The first involves drilling into the moon and bringing up oxygen rich soil. However, this method would require sophisticated and expensive equipment. Also, the likelihood of a successful excavation on the moon’s surface with current technology is low to none. Also, if you drill into the moon, the radiation from the sun would kill any microbes that live within the drilled hole.
The second way to extract oxygen from the moon is through using electrolysis. This method involves breaking apart oxygen rich material on the surface with an ionic generator. Once the ion generator produces negative ions, the negatively charged particles then drag the oxygen molecules through the electrolysis chamber, which would remove the excess oxygen from the soil. This method has some advantages and some disadvantages. For one thing, the amount of oxygen would be much lower…
